


I Know You All

by executrix



Category: Blakes7
Genre: AU, F/M, Fusions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A somewhat less fatal version of Rumours of Death, with a different political outcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know You All

I **HARVESTMONTH, 10th Day, Renumbered Year 1**  
There is one real argument for the life of the revolutionary. The rebel may be hunted from place to place, always in imminent danger, fearing betrayal both from without and within.

But there's no paperwork.

Which cannot be said for the life of the freshly appointed President of the Democratic Confederacy of Terra. Whatever would come in the future, Blake could look back on the (at least temporary) routing of Federation tyranny from Earth, the emptying of the political prisons, dismantling the apparatus of state terror. There could be order without oppression, prosperity without the subjection of a peasantry, peace without dullness. 

On the more personal level, a case could be made out for living in the Presidential Palace, sleeping in a comfortable bed, and eating hot meals on a regular schedule (even though many of them turned out to be rubber-chicken state banquets).

The solid-gold pen held in his cramped hand (cramped by signing, initialing, and annotating endless documents, over and above the endless computer input) clinked against his wedding ring. He didn't like jewelry, he never had, found it hard to get used to teleport bracelets. (Now his last teleport bracelet rested in a Perspex case in the office.) But if he could get used to that metallic link, he could get used to the ring.

II **THREE WEEKS EARLIER**  
 _What would you undertake  
To show yourself your father's son in deed  
More than in words?"  
"To cut his throat i'the church _ (Hamlet)

Too dizzy with pain and exhaustion to plan more than two or three moves ahead, Avon went down the steps to the cellar of the Presidential Palace. Servalan was there. Killing her would perfect his revenge. At that point, if he could still stay on his feet, he'd think of something else to do.

III **A LITTLE EARLIER THAN THE LAST**

 _Down, down, to the Base Court, down_ (Richard II)

I do hope they'll be more loyal to me, Anna thought. It's taking all my attention to keep Servalan's loyal and hand-picked troops from shredding her to pieces and teleporting the bits to the four winds. Perhaps if she'd kept her hands to herself a bit more often...

Elementary strategy dictated that Servalan, kept alive, might have some value. Anyway, you could keep her alive for a while, then kill her when her usefulness ran out. Pretty difficult to do it the other way round. Dead-unlike calumniated, mind-wiped, or exiled-means Game Over.

Anna enjoyed her very brief tenure behind the desk in the President's office. She just hoped to keep the troops on her side for a couple of hours. In the short run, just about anyone could have focused the hatred that Servalan (the least beloved figurehead of a far from beloved system) worked so hard to earn. But in the long run, someone with broader appeal would be needed. The sealed train should have deposited Blake at the border an hour or two earlier. 

There was plenty to do, not least checking to see that her gown was ready. The Palace was full of magnificent gowns-or, at any rate, expensive and ornate ones, Anna thought most of them were hideous. But there were at least a couple appropriate for very special occasions. Once they had been altered a bit to fit her.

What a shame Avon couldn't be there to see his-well, what would describe his relation to Blake-best fiend? dearest enemy? rival of his watch?-step out to the balcony to receive the homage of the crowd. 

One could hardly imagine Avon ever getting elected to anything. He would be a real waste of space in electoral politics. The campaign speeches would either be eight hours long, so he could really enjoy the sound of his own voice, or five words long: "Sod off. I don't care." But sometimes she still missed her long-lost favorite assignment and third-most-devious person of her acquaintance. Not just the repertoire, but the...flammability.

IV **IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS**  
 _O I am fortune's fool!_ (Romeo  & Juliet)

Anna was amazed to see the last-minute cellar check (to see her newly acquired asset was still alive) turn into a reunion of all three of the most devious people she had ever met. Out of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world... 

Anna had popped downstairs in her capacity as leader of a coup d'etat. Servalan was in no position to leave, being chained to the wall. Avon, of all people, was standing in the cellar with a gun in his hand. He didn't look at all well. Anna knew that only arrogance was keeping him on his feet, a sudden rush of humility would render him comatose or worse. He paled even further when he saw her.

"I suppose it just goes to show," he said, "That the only ways you can really know that someone is dead are an autopsy report from a really reliable medical examiner, or killing them yourself."

From Anna's viewpoint, that didn't sound good at all. Still, she thought it best to play out the hand. Anna moved toward him, embracing him and resting her head on his chest. He flinched a little (there hadn't been time to run a medi-tech unit over those cigarette burns) and pushed her away. "Is that cannon fire, or my heart beating?" Anna asked.

"Both, I should think. But neither of them need continue indefinitely."

She liked that even less. 

"For Christ's sake, Anna, don't try to play me. You made a fucking idiot of me last time, but I've learned a lot in the interim."

"When did you find out?"

"Oh, very recently. Very recently. You used me and laughed at me and threw me away. Eventually I'm sure I'll regain enough perspective appreciate the humor." You need a safety device on weapons that you carry concealed. Avon was glad that disarming it made a satisfyingly dramatic click. Rage and pain and loss and regret surged within him, subsuming and absorbing everything else. He closed his eyes.

He opened them again a few seconds later. What was the use of intelligence and civilization if they vanished instantly for something as meaningless as... Embarrassment, mostly. He couldn't stand the thought that someone had made a fool of him. To love someone completely was to put everything at risk. He wouldn't make that mistake again. It was stupid to have made it in the first place. But it didn't seem enough reason to kill.

"If you kill me now, Avon, you will be signing the warrant for your own damnation. It's going to be bloody cold in Hell, and you'll never get a moment's privacy."

Avon disengaged Anna from his arm and raised the gun in his right hand, with his left hand crossing over it, the fingers fanned out. "I suppose that's why I had already decided not to kill you." He fired, and one of Servalan's manacles splintered. Like everyone else in the room, she routinely carried a Federation standard handcuff key, so she was able to unlock the other in short order. Avon crossed to her side, put his left hand on her shoulder, and kissed her lightly but comprehensively. 

Figuring out what to do with his right hand was the problem. He had to keep the gun tucked far enough behind his back so Servalan couldn't reach it, yet not far enough for Anna or any of her troopers to grab it. He moved behind Servalan, so he could put his left arm around her shoulder.

"I think it's time for us to examine opportunities in the private sector," Avon said.

Servalan looped her right arm around his waist. "Consider this the Chiltern Hundreds."

They strolled out the cellar door and up the back stairs. "Oh, let them go," Anna said. "We've all got work to do." Then she went upstairs to her suite, to bathe hurriedly and dress.

V **A FEW MINUTES LATER**  
 _If all the year were playing holidays,  
To sport would be as tedious as to work _ (Henry IV Part I)

The streets were packed, chaotic, nearly everyone surging toward the central plaza. The occasional few were looting, throwing petrol bombs, picking pockets, or otherwise entering into an alternative version of the spirit of official jubilation. "Do you know where you're going?" Servalan asked.

"I've booked in at a very expensive hotel. It's about two miles from here. Sorry if it's a long walk, but it's your own fault if you can't wear comfortable shoes."

"And they rented a room to a hunted fugitive? I'll have to have a word when things change and I get back on top again."

"An alternate identity of mine. I used to construct them, to while away the long winter evenings."

"I think it was a mistake to have the banners professionally printed," Avon said, looking at one of the artificial-silk flags bearing Blake's name above an insignia of two circles and a right-facing arrow. Sometimes, when it seemed that they would pass someone in the street, they ducked into a doorway. Avon stood in front of Servalan, hiding her better-known face from persons of unknown intentions and loyalties. 

Sometimes they exchanged a kiss, but there was a tacit understanding that they had reached years of maturity and discretion, and it was pointless to fool around in doorways when there was a luxury hotel room in easy striking distance.

VI **IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARD**  
 _Was ever woman in this humor wooed?  
Was ever woman in this humor won?   
I'll have her, but I will not keep her long_ (Richard III)

As soon they got up to the room, Avon got on the communicator unit to the front desk. "Room 3709. I'd like to book another room-no, I want to keep this one, but have another one as well. Yes, I can imagine that you're busy. Isn't there anything left? Yes, that will do splendidly. Put it on the same bill."

He turned to Servalan. "They've put you in the Presidential Suite, I'm sure you'll appreciate that. If you want to go upstairs, you can freshen up and put your jewelry into the safe. Then you won't have to count it the next time I kiss you."

Servalan looked around the room, which didn't satisfy her standards for opulence, but was luxurious enough. The bed was large enough for a platoon. Her eyebrows rose.

"I don't like to have anyone sleep in my bed."

"I don't foresee much sleep for you in the near future." Or, Avon reflected, in the recent past. He went back to the communicator. "Would you like anything from room service? Fix yourself a drink if you like. The bottles are unopened, as you can see I haven't been near them, and I had no way of knowing you'd be coming, so you're safe enough from any attempt on my part to poison you. Now, whether your people knew I was here and tried to poison me, you'll be the best judge of that. Although you can't consult the most recent log files to check, can you?" 

The room service operator answered. "Room 3709. Same as last time, please. Serve it on a tray, not a cart. Yes, that's right, in a pitcher on the side. And a large pot of espresso." He had known Servalan long enough to anticipate her actions, so he added, "And two spoons. Yes, I'm sure they're all glued to the vidscreens. Send someone apolitical. Send an android."  
He clashed the receiver against the sending unit. 

Servalan opened a bottle of sangiovese from Hackamore IV Parva, tasted a sip, realized that she was going to drink the whole bottle even if it tasted like gun oil, and poured a balloon glass perilously full. 

"I hope I don't have to threaten to buy the hotel-or, worse, buy it-just to get a reasonable level of service."

A few minutes later, the bellman knocked on the door. Avon clicked on the thumbnail image on the security screen, then took the gun out of his pocket. He opened the door just a crack. There was no one in the hall except the bellman, holding a silver tray in one white-gloved hand. 

Avon handed him a tip that would have satisfied an extortionist of modest greed in possession of a very discreditable secret, and took the tray in his left hand. He shouldered the door shut and put the gun back in the waistband of his trousers. He luxuriated in the imminent prospect of moving someplace where none of those precautions would be necessary.

"I don't tip," Servalan said. "After all, that's their job." She glanced at the contents of the tray. "That's a coupe glacee." 

"I should hope so," Avon said. Coup de grace for Shrinker, coup d'etat for Anna and Blake, and coupe glacee for Avon. Another dish best eaten cold.

"We've lost everything, if my people win there's a price on your head, if your people win, there's a price on mine, and you're sitting there eating an ice cream."

"I don't think either of us has "people" any more. You're a more convivial sort than I am, so it bothers you more. And, at any rate, I don't see why I can't have an ice cream if I want one."

"It seems rather...regressive. Why is the whipped cream in a pitcher?"

"Otherwise you have to eat it all first, and it's the best part, isn't it?"

"Avon, you're simply not being upset enough." It emerged as a hybrid bellow-and-wail.

"I don't see why I should be upset at all. I'm sitting in a very comfortable room, which is a change. No one is trying to kill me, which is a revelation. Unless you are, but I don't think so. Later on this evening I will either have an interesting experience I've often speculated about, or a decent night's sleep, which would be a miracle. It's true that I recently lost half a million credits on a kairopan butterfly straddle--day trading and pursuit ships just don't mix. The Terran stock exchange probably won't reopen for a couple of days. When it does, I don't want to be insulting, but the capital markets will be positively ecstatic about Blake's takeover, so I'll have lots more money. Can't think of much to complain about at the moment."

"What about the Liberator? You haven't got the Liberator, and neither have I."

"Do you know, Servalan, I can't remember what I wanted it for in the first place. Probably just to wind up Blake. I'm hardly going to rent it out for charter parties."

"It's the greatest ship in the Universe. If you could reverse-engineer it, you could build a factory and have all the money you ever wanted."

"In a few years or months' time I'll have all the money I ever wanted anyway."

"What are you going to do?"

"I bought a bank," Avon said. "What's robbing a bank, compared with owning a bank?"

"Here?"

"No, on Aksibarra. I've bought a small and very expensive house, and I'm going to keep building rooms onto it and invent things. Aksibarra has a series of mines that are the richest supply of prmolloy in the Universe."

"The tritium ore?" Servalan asked sharply.

Avon nodded. "It repays experimentation. I'm sure you can do lots of lovely things with it. I'll give you the coordinates for my house. You'll be welcome there--for about two days a year. If you come alone and unarmed." 

VII **A FEW MINUTES LATER**  
 _For God's sake let us sit upon the ground  
And tell sad stories of the death of kings!  
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,  
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,  
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed _ (Richard II)

"All right then, what about me?" Servalan said, well into the third glass of wine. 

"Compared to a day ago, your situation is perfectly desperate. Compared to an hour ago, it's brilliant." Gratitude is a part of life, but I can see you've kept it a small one. 

"And, by the way, that water opal parure you're wearing is worth about a quarter of a million credits. Even at fence's rates, that should give you enough of a nest egg to start over. In fact, you might want to buy into Jenna's operation. She has a base in Valoonica, and a gang of reliable women. She says they keep lots of toyboys around to wash the dishes and drive the getaway flyers. They're working on an art job--a major collection of ancient art. Well, a fool and his Monet are soon parted."

"So you miss Jenna?"

For a second, he thought about her, dismissed the thought, thought about Vila. Vila would be all right, he'd land on his feet. Well, no he wouldn't, Avon thought, but right now I've got problems of my own to deal with.

"Not particularly. I'm looking forward to living someplace where there are damn few people and plenty of machines." 

"And don't you think you ought to have read about guilt for setting your priorities that way?"

"No, I don't, Servalan. I've never had a machine try to hurt me on its own initiative. I can't keep calling you that--what's your first name?"

"Irene." 

"Oh. What's your second name?"

"You're not going to like it. I was named after my richest relative. Well, it's not an uncommon name, you know."

"Then you'll understand if I get carried away and call you by the wrong name. I'll try to keep track and not try to throttle you."

"I quite enjoyed it the last time," Servalan said.

VIIa **A TAD LATER**

 _Had, having had, in quest to have, extreme_ (Sonnet 129)

"I know you're very smart," Servalan said. "Now lie down."

VIII **AN HOUR LATER**  
 _Now is the winter of our discontent  
Made glorious summer by this son of York _(Richard III)

The military band struck up the newly composed national anthem. Of course, nobody knew the words. (A year and a half of so later, at the state funeral, they wouldn't either, but they'd sort of hum along.) Then the band and the crowd quieted as Blake and Anna stepped out on the balcony. Then they burst into a storm of acclaim. Perhaps not as loudly as Blake had always imagined, but it definitely would be analyzed into the storm column.

Anna was resplendent in a white dress. The underlying heavy silk was paved with white sequins. Gold sequins were revealed as the pleats opened up as she moved and stretched her arms out to the crowd.

"And as for fortune and as for fame, I never invited them in, though it seemed to the world they were all I desired. They are illusions, they are not the solutions they promised to be. The answer was here all the time: I love you, and hope you love me."

Jaz Cupersmith, reporting for the freshly renamed Democratic Broadcasting System, gazed into the camera lens. "Once again, the ordinary people of Terra have someone they can truly love. They need their excitement, their escape. Anna is the people's princess, as it were."

Anna stretched her arms out further, then bent her arms at the elbow and gazed upward. Maximum power.

Blake realized that he wasn't enjoying this moment anywhere near as much as he had anticipated.

IX **SOME TWO OR THREE DAYS AFTER THE LAST**

 _Strangers and foes do sunder and not kiss_ (All's Well that Ends Well)

There didn't seem to be any real reason for Cally to stay on the Liberator, but there didn't seem to be any real place to go.

"Something will turn up," Tarrant said absently, working on the supply manifests he would need to bring the Liberator up to full military strength.

"Being used to travel, I anticipate it" Cally said. "But all the same, I hate it. Wouldn't you?"

"In a couple of months, you won't even remember any of us."

I won't recall the names and faces of this sad occasion. But that's no consolation, here and now.

So what happens now? The voice in her head told her, "You'll get by. You always have before. Don't ask any more."

X **A MONTH LATER**

 _Do not thou, when thou art King, hang a thief_ (Henry IV, Part I)

In the abstract, Blake could understand why the President himself had to review all prison sentences over twenty years, and all clemency petitions. In the real world, it was just another endless and meaningless task. 

He leafed through the top few files. They seemed to be more or less in order. It would take a lifetime just to read through them all. He signaled to his secretary to rubber-stamp them all with his signature.

XI **TWO WEEKS AFTER X**

 _I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.  
[...] Reply not to me with a fool-born jest.  
Presume not that I am the thing I was. _(Henry IV, Part II)

"Turned up like a bad penny, I see," Blake said, looking up from the pile of papers that nearly obscured the communications terminal. It was no more and no less than he expected. 

As a compliment to Anna, he had adopted the "Style Revolutionnaire": a plain long-sleeved jacket over matching trousers in flannel of a subtle blue-gray. The matching short cloak hung behind one of a range of heavily carved cabinet doors.

"Dreadful, isn't it?" Avon said, throwing down the two military-issue carbines he was carrying (he prudentially held on to the clips), and seating himself on the corner of the presidential desk. There had only been time to get a few new suits tailored. It was hard to decide what to wear for such a potentially momentous (and potentially fatal) occasion, so he settled on a loose pair of anthracite gray trousers, tucked into short boots, and a sober violet-blue velvet tunic, pleated all down the front, with a thin, flexible shell of body armor set into the front and back panels. Only the band collar and a few inches at the shoulderline of a celadon-green linen shirt showed over the top of the tunic. 

Avon debated the psychological effect of pouring himself a glass of water from the presidential crystal carafe, as against the risk that it was drugged or poisoned, and opted for the effect. The carafe was only half-full, so it probably wasn't poisoned. It was most unlikely that Blake would have drugged his own water supply, though it was within the realm of possibility that his followers had done so. 

"And?" Blake gestured toward the richly carved double doors.

"One of them was persuaded to take an early luncheon in exchange for a thousand-credit note. The other one will have a hell of a headache. Yes, it's a pleasure to see you too."

"I heard about your new bit of skirt."

"Well, now you've got my old one. You should always be careful about getting a second-hand spacecraft--or an ex-rental spacecraft. They can be very unreliable." When you found her, she was a morsel cold on Caesar's trencher. Avon paced around the room, opened the silver-plate biscuit barrel, and at long last was able to snag the last chocolate digestive. 

If it's her that's using him, he's exceptionally dim. "Servalan and I watched the royal wedding festivities on the telly. In bed, eating cream cakes. It was a mistake." 

"Not inviting you? Why, which one of you wanted to be bridesmaid?"

"No, the cream cakes. We'll be picking out interstitial bits of flaky pastry until well into your democratically elected second term. When are the elections going to be, by the way? I seem to have missed the announcement as well as the wedding invitation."

"Your newly acquired concern for the rabble is touching. But if you cared, you'd realize that a period of transition is needed in which order can be imposed without tyranny. And you ought to admire the accomplishment--an orderly transition with scarcely a shot fired in anger."

"And one of those was into Chesku's back. Have you entirely gone mad? The interval between her last little fit of self-induced bereavement and your wedding lasted only long enough to have one of Ree's dresses fitted for her."

"Ree?"

"Her first name's Irene."

Blake grimaced. "What's her second?"

"Anna."

"Oh."

"But I suppose fiscal prudence will be the hallmark of your regime. You only needed one set of hors d'oeuvres for the coronation, Chesku's state funeral, and the wedding."

"The honeymoon was quite satisfactory, I must say. Anna said that it was wonderful to find a real man at last."

Avon flinched, and his eyes closed for an instant. Why didn't she just post the archives and have done with it? "She says it's your body, but she's after your files. God, you are stupid. When it's in her interest, or merely her amusement, to crush your ego instead of fluffing it, then she'll have a very different tale to tell you."

"Did you come here for something other than annoyance value?"

"I didn't expect a title deed for my ship, but I thought that at least I'd try." 

"I'm sure you can understand that I need it for defense against any Federation remnants, including your paramour, and anyone else who cares to try their arm. I've come to a satisfactory arrangement with Admiral Tarrant about it. If you'd like, you can file a claim in civil court for lease payments."

They were absolutely giving away gratitude in the cornflakes packets these days, weren't they?

Avon had often found it productive to say nothing, and wait for vital information to be volunteered, or amends to be made. But he knew that anything that didn't happen within twenty seconds or so wasn't going to happen. So he took a long look at what he expected to be his last sighting of Blake in the flesh rather than on a telly screen or tabloid photograph.

"Right, then," Blake said. "If you think you can kill me, try. Otherwise, the door is the wood thing in the wall."

Avon considered that a two-bit analysis: Most people would demand additional levels of grayscale. "It's a very old wall," Avon said. "It waits."

XII **IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS**

 _I was not angry since I came to France until this instant_ (Henry V)

Avon walked out of Blake's office, pausing to put the clips back in the carbines and cross them over the prostrate body of the guard. He knelt beside her and dropped a couple of analgesic tablets onto her uniform tunic.

'King 'ell, Avon thought. I wish I could have wiped that smirk off his face. He thinks that he's won this round, and that it's the last round in the game. But he doesn't realize yet that holding political power will be as richly rewarding for him as coaching a feline synchronized swimming team. And he doesn't know that when Anna at last slips the knife between his ribs, he'll be grateful.

So I suppose that means I won, after all. It would have been enjoyable to have the victory acknowledged. But not essential. 

I trusted him. I was mistaken.

He walked out into the cold drizzle, enjoying the simple pleasure of not having murdered anyone, and he gazed at the crowds around him, walking through the streets oblivious of the simple pleasure of being unmurdered by anyone at all. So many, so many, and death had not undone so many.

XIII **THREE DAYS (MUCH LESS THAN A WEEK!) AFTER THE EVENTS NARRATED AT VIIA**

 _Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing,  
And like enough, thou know'st thine estimate_ (Sonnet 87)

"Oh, I did enjoy that," Servalan said, taking a last look around the Presidential Suite to make sure that she hadn't left anything in any of the cupboards. "Everything that Bartholomew said and more."

Avon sat down, rather heavily, on the bed. He tried to banish the image of when they had discussed it, after doing what, but was unable to. It was pointless asking her. Either Servalan would say that it was pillow talk because it was true, or just to wind him up.

"I shan't write, and I may or may not turn up on your grotty little planetoid, but thanks ever so. Oh, and for the hotel room and so forth." So forth added up to a set of Vuitton luggage, now stuffed, and a very nicely done set of false papers.

"I've got an idea, Ree," Avon said. "I hate to think of those water opals going to waste. I'll give you fifty thousand for the set, cash on the barrelhead. A little something to begin a new life with."

She knew that he would turn around and re-sell them for a hundred before the elevator reached the lobby, but she stifled her protests. It was likely that her next planetfall would be in some primitive area, where paste would do just as well, whether for convincing the natives she was a goddess or for daytime wear under adverse environmental conditions.

On the viewerscreen, Jaz Cupersmith was being faintly catty about the hat Madame President wore while smashing a bottle of champagne against the hull of a new Liberator-class warship.

"Do I detect some resistance to Our Heroine's style?" Servalan asked.

"That isn't funny," Avon said.

XIII **SIX MONTHS EARLIER**

 _I know you all, and will awhile uphold  
The unyoked humor of your idleness.  
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,  
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds  
To smother up his beauty from the world,  
That, when he please again to be himself,  
Being wanted, he may be more wond'red at  
[...] So, when this loose behavior I throw off  
And pay the debt I never promised,  
By how much better than my word I am,  
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes. _ (Henry IV, Part I)

Blake knew that sooner or later someone was going to track him down. Meanwhile, he was enjoying supervising the construction of the water purification system on Banshoof. Civil engineering had never been his specialty, but he could turn his hand to it. 

The fact of his interception was not surprising, but its nature was. The emissary wasn't offering instant death, or durance at the hands of the Federation, or nominal rescue and return to the passionately adventurous way of life that Blake was utterly glad to abandon. 

It is impolite to look a gift horse in the mouth, Even a gift Trojan horse. In terms of pragmatism, rather than etiquette, however, gifts bearing Greeks are a legitimate source of anxiety. 

The emissary, a young man with very white skin and freckles, seemed anxious enough himself, once in the presence of the universe's most hunted rebel. "I don't mean you any harm," he began, awkwardly enough. "Oh, I suppose I would say that even if I did."

"Not necessarily," Blake said. "I'm pretty well used to being threatened. Although there are those who offer the hand of friendship and then try to kill me, and those who couldn't drown a sack of stray kittens but threaten the earth. So it's hard to make any judgments in the short range."

"You know, you're not the only person who doesn't have a lot of time for the Federation," the young man began again. "There are elements very close to the inner junta who want to overthrow those corrupt bastards and start all over again."

"Being corrupt bastards?" Blake asked.

The young man blushed. "No, of course not, we'll never get anywhere if you insist on taking me up on every word. No, it's a question of matter and manner. Madame Chesku knows that a true revolution, not a minor palace coup, must garner popular support. After the Andromedan War, we have conditions conducive to a change of government. But we also have a severely damaged military and a depleted population who are war-sick and won't stand for a prolonged civil war. So I've been sent here to offer you the Big Apple."

Don't close doors. Leave an escape clause. It could be another trap (hadn't it always been before?) but now Blake had no hostages to fortune to worry about. Or no one else to take the first bullet, if you want to think of it like that. 

Sometimes even the least cynical man has to trust to luck.

XIV **TEN DAYS LATER**

 _Is it possible that I sould love de ennemie of France?"  
No, it is not possible you should love the enemy of France, Kate; but in loving me you should love the friend of France, for I love France so well that I will not part with a village of it--I will have it all mine _(Henry V)

The first meeting was off-Earth, in a carefully chosen neutral corner. Fortunately some people had more remaining boltholes than others. Blake, having no remaining allies anywhere nearby, came by himself. Anna came with a modest, tastefully chosen and furnished bodyguard. 

Blake's eyes widened when he recognized the woman (with a few, but not many, more lines on her face) in the photograph Avon had carried for so long, through many changes of clothing and fortune. An unexpected dividend.

"If all you want is a figurehead, go somewhere else," Blake said. "If I'm to do this, I must be given a free hand to govern." Blake, the wayward son of the Federation, felt himself called to its bedside before reconciliation would be too late. He tried on his dying father's crown. Its weight of gold was reassuring.

"That's exactly what we're looking for," Anna told him. "We need a true leader, one to provide the high-level aims. What we have to offer you is the mechanism, the expertise in the details of administration. The man who can lead in battle isn't always the one who can pick from among three competing schemes for rural electrification."

Blake shuddered at the thought of picking from among competing schemes for rural electrification. 

XV **A YEAR AND A HALF AFTER THE COUP**

 _The entertainment of death_ (Measure for Measure)

"What a circus," Servalan said. Avon had made the croissants and the table (wrought iron, with a mosaic top), but the blackcurrant preserves were imported. "Good publicity for Blake, I suppose. The funeral must be the top story on every viewerscreen throughout the civilized planets."

"I'm astonished that he survived her," said Avon (who had the distinction of being the first man to be of use to Anna Sula Grant Chesku Blake). "They've all gone crazy. Falling over themselves to get all of the misery right." 

"Oh, what an exit," Servalan said, pouring another cup of the excellent coffee. "That's how to go. When they're ringing your curtain down, demand the same treatment."

"She had her moments," Avon said. Although it was sentimental, he couldn't help being sad, at least a little. "She had some style."

Don't cry. Although it may be harder for you to see her, Anna is the Federation. And always will be.

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my first-ever fics. I went through a phase of building fics by fusing two other properties. This is the "Evita/Henry IV" one.


End file.
